Christmas Plague
by emmy313
Summary: December 1898 "Shoot," Crutchie chuckled. "Racer's sick every dang Christmas, poor guy. He'll be fine by the weekend. You know that." "No," Jack said. "No, I don't just know that." His chest had felt tight all day; he couldn't explain it. Jack pressed his lips together, and took a long inhale of biting, cold air through his nose. "I...I...shit, Crutch, you saw 'im this mornin'"


**December 1898**

The sun set too early in the winter. By the time the boys trudged home from selling the evening pape, it felt like midnight. They ate quietly, then gathered around the heater in the living room.

"Up for some of poker?" Race asked. He lit a cigar, then coughed into his fist.

Tommy Boy pulled a deck of cards from his coat pocket. "Ya have a couple too many cigars, there, Chimney Top?"

Race coughed heavily again, then took another puff and blew a shaky smoke ring. "Shut up," he said. He cleared his throat. "Just gettin' a cold."

"There's our headline for the morning," Finch said. He was laying on the floor with his head in Elmer's lap. "Christmas plague claims another."

"Ah, don't ya fuss." Race sat down on the floor next to Jack, who draped his arm around Race's shoulder.

"'Bout tradition by now, yeah?" Jack said.

The boys passed a terrible cold between them every single winter. Crutchie was usually the first struck down, around Thanksgiving, then the rest of them knew it was only a matter of time. Race had been sick last Christmas, and the year before that, and seemed to be going for a third year in a row.

A couple of the younger boys joined the circle in a tangle of arms and legs and blankets. Grey, slushy sleet settled outside. Race sneezed and snorted; Tommy dealt cards. For once, Race lost every single hand.

…

When the morning bell rang on Christmas Eve, Race only slowly rolled over. He'd been in bed for two days.

"Rise and shine, boys!" Tommy called down the line of bunk beds. "Sooner we sells out, sooner we gets our Christmas dinner!"

"Shut up!" Jack snapped. "Race's still sleepin'." He grabbed his shirt from his bunk and pulled it over his head.

"Sorry," Tommy said.

A voice came from the washroom: "Gimme my toothpaste!" then the quick footsteps of a scuffle.

"Shut the hell up!" Tommy yelled back, barging into the bathroom. "No fighting on Christmas!"

Jack looked around the empty bedroom and into the washroom: Buttons and Henry, the two youngest, were arguing in overlapping voices. Crutchie dressed slowly, stiffly. Winter was so hard on him. Race was huddled in a pitiful heap of tangled blankets. It was going to be a long day.

Jack approached the top bunk nearest to the window. "Ya a'right, Racer?" he asked quietly.

Race turned towards him. "I feel like shit," he said hoarsely. "Can you shut them up? My head hurts 'nuff as it is."

"We'll be outta your hair soon, buddy," Jack said.

Race coughed heavily into his pillow, and wheezed, struggling to catch his breath. His blonde hair stuck up at odd angles, and his blue eyes were glassy and unfocused. Heat practically radiated off of him.

"You...you sure you good stayin' here alone?"

"Yeah," Race replied, barely audible. "I's fine."

Jack nodded. He quietly got Race a glass of water, buttoned his coat, and rounded up the boys to sell papes.

.

Everyone felt sorry for the boys working on a holiday, so they always sold out quickly. They were out only a few hours before they met back at the distribution center two and three at a time.

"One lady gave me a whole extra nickel!" Henry held it up in his mittened fingers. "Just 'cause it's Christmas!"

Crutchie smiled as he massaged his leg. "I sold fifty papes."

"What do ya think the nuns are gonna bring us for supper?" Elmer wondered.

"Ham!" Finch said.

"No, turkey!" Henry said. "Or both!" The twins pelted each other with snowballs in an empty lot across the street.

Jack just stood with his hands in his coat pockets. "Let's head back, fellas!" He shouted. "C'mon! We gotta get home." At least the wind had died down. He plowed ahead of the group, head down, catching bits of the chatter behind him.

"Apple pie!"

"Apple and pumpkin!"

"Thirty...forty...one...two...holy smokes, fellas! I made forty-two cents!"

"Hell yeah!" Mike laughed loudly.

"Jack," Crutchie called. "Jackie, slow down!"

Jack turned and looked over his shoulder. Crutchie was moving as fast as he could to catch up. Jack paused and Crutchie fell into step beside him, panting.

"What's the matter wit ya, Jackie?" Crutchie said. "It's Christmas."

Jack shook his head. "Race's sick, in case you forgot."

"Shoot," Crutchie chuckled. "Racer's sick every dang Christmas, poor guy. He'll be fine by the weekend. You know that."

"No," Jack said. "No, I don't just know that."

His chest had felt tight all day; he couldn't explain it. Jack pressed his lips together, and took a long inhale of biting, cold air through his nose. "I...I...shit, Crutch, you saw 'im this mornin'. What we gonna do?"

Crutchie was quiet a moment, which felt even more frustrating.

"Let's...see how he's feelin' when we get home, huh?" Crutchie said. "Maybe the sisters have got some remedy laying around."

"Yeah."

Nine Christmases ago, the flu had swept through the apartment complex and stolen away his mother and his wild-child little sister. His best friend. Jack claimed he didn't have folks, but God, not a day went by he didn't think of Ciara's contagious laugh and dark curls, of his mother's busy hands and firm, lilting voice, of the endless energy and imagination they'd both possessed.

"No," Jack said. His own voice started him somehow. He felt so restless. "Yeah, you right. Race'll be fine."

**.**

The boys filled the little living room with laughter as soon as they returned to the lodge. Tommy and Finch held each other by the shoulders, play wrestling. Buttons climbed onto Spec's back, and snatched the hat from his head. Crutchie sank into a chair and laughed at something Romeo said.

Jack lit the stove and watched the orange coals flicker. "I'm gonna check on Race," He said. No one heard him.

When Jack got upstairs, Race was in the same spot he'd been in when they left that morning.

"'Ey," Jack said. "We sold out real quick. How ya doin'?"

"I can't fuckin' breathe," Race said hoarsely. He pushed himself to sit up, and erupted into a fit of hacking coughs.

"You look like shit."

Race was coughing too hard to answer. He took a slow, shaky breath, and pressed a hand to his ribs.

"Want some water?" Jack asked, and Race nodded. Jack filled his glass from the pump in the washroom.

Race drank half of it in three gulps. "Don't...don't ya dare baby me," he said.

Jack shook his head. "Ya sicker than the rest of us been," he said. "Sicker than ya usually are." Their wisecracks about the Christmas plague didn't feel funny anymore.

A chair clattered downstairs followed by a roar of laughter. Jack marched across the long bedroom to the top of the steps. "Knock it off!" He shouted down the stairs.

"Sorry, Ma!" Tommy yelled back. More raucous laughter.

Race coughed again and spit into his hand. "Oh, Jesus, that's gross," he muttered. Jack could hear his breathing from where he stood twenty steps away.

"Sounds bad," Jack said. The anxiety was swelling in him again, like a balloon below his breastbone. _Keep your damn head, Kelly. _He thought.

The nuns would come soon with Christmas hams and apple pies in their arms. They'd come with _blessed are the poor_ and _Merry Christmas_ and big, patronizing smiles in their mouths. None of that sounded like a lot of help right now. Church hadn't been a bit of help when his mama and sisters had been sick.

Jack could nearly hear his Irish Catholic mother scolding him for his irreverence. He ground his teeth, and he pressed a hand to Race's burning forehead. "What?" Race said, blinking stupidly.

"I gotta get us some help," Jack said. "We...ya need _somethin'_, Racer." He licked his lips. "I got an idea."

**.**

Jack ran down the steps, past his brothers, out the door, and past the church, dodging carts and people in the pale, fading sunshine. He ran, and he ran, and he didn't stop running until he reached the back door of the theatre.

It was locked. He pounded on the door, panting. "Miss Medda!" he shouted. "Open up!"

Medda came to the door in a glimmering party dress. Of course she had somewhere to be. "Jack?" She said. "Come in, baby. Everything alright?"

Jack sat down on a crate of costumes, pressed his hands into his knees, and said, "Race's real sick, Miss Medda. I don't know what to do."

The next thing he knew, Medda was walking Jack to her carriage with a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder. "You're a good friend, baby," she said. "I've a doctor friend who can help us. Miss Medda's got you. Miss Medda's gonna take care of you boys."

**.**

Christmas dinner had just arrived when Jack got back.

"Jackie, where ya been?" Crutchie asked. His eyes widened as Medda and the tall, skinny doctor came in on Jack's heels.

"Shit, we can't afford no doctor!" Tommy said.

"Don't you worry a bit about it, boys," Medda said. She smiled warmly at the startled nun. "Well, Merry Christmas, sister!"

The doctor disappeared upstairs. Jack collapsed into a chair between Crutchie and Specs.

"Race actually that bad off, Jack?" Specs asked.

"I think so," Jack sighed. Medda squeezed his shoulder and handed him a plate full of food.

"Now, everyone's going to be just fine, baby," Medda said. "Eat up."

He did, quietly.

Everyone looked up when the doctor came back downstairs. "Bronchitis," he announced, as he buttoned his coat. "The boy's sleeping now. Fever is coming down already. He'll be right as rain by New Years."

For the first time all day, Jack relaxed. The tension melted from his shoulders and he leaned against Crutchie. A nun handed him a piece of pie.

As Race slept dreamlessly through a cough syrup induced coma, the boys and Medda and the two shy nuns had Christmas dinner. They sprawled out on the floor with plates in their laps or crowded knee-to-knee around the table. The fire was warm, and the conversation was warm. Their bodies were exhausted, and their bellies were full. What a Christmas.

.

"It's Christmas!" Buttons shouted as the sun was coming up. A pillow sailed across the room and smacked him in the head. But they soon emerged from their bunks one by one to a clear, crisp day.

Race sat up and looked around at his brothers all getting ready. "Morning, boys," he croaked. Every head swiveled towards Race. He was disheveled, but clear-eyed. He coughed and tried to talk again. "Mornin'," he said, stronger.

"Feelin' better, kid?" Jack asked.

Race nodded. "Feelin' human again." He slowly climbed out of his top bunk. "And don't ya _kid_ me. Wes the same age."

"Nah, ya still a kid."

"Thanks for getting that doc." Race swung an arm around Jack's shoulder. "You're a real pal."

"Ya smell like a junkyard." Jack gave him a shove. "Go take a shower."

It was rare for the boys to have a day off, and they settled in for a lazy day of poker and marbles and grazing on leftovers from their feast. Medda came around noon with even more food and her arms full of presents.

The boys tore into their gifts. Medda enveloped Race in a long hug. She stood between Race and Jack, dwarfed by both, with a hand on each boy's shoulder. "Now, you all take care, boys," She announced. "Once y'all are healthy, I want you to come to Miss Medda's for New Years!"

_Ha-choo! _Little Henry sneezed. Jack groaned.


End file.
